1600dave

Yep, definitely wait till after things settle down Covid-19 wise. I'm organising an MX5 Club motorkhana this Sunday and some of the changes we've had to make to get the event approved and running have been challenging to say the least. What would have been our next driver training day at Pheasant Wood in a few weeks has become an ordinary track day as no passengers / trainers are allowed at the moment. For the motorkhana this weekend we couldn't even get approval for parents to be in the car to supervise their kids so have had a couple of juniors pull out. If you've done the SDC skids nights, we've probably met - I've been Clerk of Course for the last couple.

The various Datsun clubs in Sydney tend to not run motorsport events themselves. Sydney Datsun Club puts on the odd weekday evening motorkhana on the wet skidpan at Eastern creek (although they tend to be more "random skids in the wet" than "proper motorkhana"). We don't have any planned at the moment, last one was scheduled for May but was cancelled due to Covid-19. If you're interested, my "other" club (NSW MX5 Club) runs quite a few events a year on either the South Circuit at Eastern Creek, at Wakefield Park or at Pheasant Wood (Marulan). Most events include dedicated sessions for newcomers, with in-car instruction from experienced drivers for the first of those sessions at EC or WP, or full day driver training days at Pheasant Wood. Details of future events are on their website, all you need is to be a member of a CAMS-affilliated club and hold a CAMS licence (some events have on offer a single-day "Come and Try" licence to avoid the need to fork out the $120-odd for an annual licence), members of other clubs are welcome.

Glad you got there in the end. I restored a few cars back in the day for a bit of spending money and more recently paint stripped my car inside, outside, underneath, basically removed every bit of paint off it. Another possibility for the dents is to braze a washer (on its edge) right into the deepest bit of the dent and use a slide hammer or similar to hook thru the hole in the washer and "pull" it out. Then melt or grind the washer off. Bit like the dodgy brothers version of the modern spot welded dent puller system. Or smack them down with a hammer so they're not proud of the bonnet line and bog them up...............

Scratch the paint surface with really coarse sandpaper first (40 grit or similar), to give the stripper something to "bite" into. Lather the stripper on, then cover with plastic. The cheap plastic dropcloths from the paint section at Bunnings are perfect. Leave for a while, then attack it with a scraper, try to sort-of "chisel" the soft paint off. Repeat if necessary, will depend on what paint is on it, may take a few goes. Seems to work better for me if I chisel the paint off straight away, can start to harden up a little if you leave it for long. The yellow could be something like epoxy primer which in my experience is rather hard to get off...... You should be able to get pretty much all the paint off, only needing to resort to cleaning up a few remaining spots with the wire wheel or orbital sander. Only damage is if you get it too hot and buckle it, but you seem aware of that. To fix the dent, if you can't get in behind to knock it out, perhaps cut or drill a hole in whatever is blocking access behind and use a punch or similar to knock the dent out. Then patch the rear, or just use a grommet if you can get away with a smallish hole for access and you don't think it'll look out of place. I'd be wary of cutting the top skin of the bonnet.

Yeah, that's not cold gal paint on the post. I used the gal paint on some handrails made from gal pipe I welded up for my old man's place, just around the welds. After 5-6 years the cold gal was starting to show a little rust coming thru (and yes, I gave it a few coats). In my experience, your best bet is a good epoxy primer on visible painted surfaces (or POR15 / KBS if you're keen, I've used them on both car and trailer with reaonablt succes, admittedly the car hasn't left the shed since.....), and a good dose of something like fish oil / cavity wax in all cavities. My personal "special mix" used to be a combination of Tectyl rustproofing and a bit of fish oil to thin it down and get it penetrating into all nooks and crannies.

Thanks, sounds close-ish to what I'm after. I'll await pics, will probably take them if they are suitable. Most interested in pics of dome to get an idea if they are suitable for use with the particular head / combustion chamber shape I'll be running.

Few questions around the pistons : Domed / Dished / Flat top ? Standard compresion height ? New / 2nd hand (condition ?) / rings / gudgeon pins ?

Looking to the US for specialist stuff can make sense, but for common things like brake seals and other mechanical parts you're probably better of just going down to your local brake place or an Australian online site. Don't take the part number in the link below as gospel (I'm not a 280ZX expert, and don't know if there are differences between year models, etc), but its an example for a repair kit for rear calipers for a 280ZX from one of the places I get stuff from. $50 and you'll have them in a day or two. http://eziautoparts.com.au/clutch-and-brake/index.php?target=products&mode=search&subcats=Y&type=extended&avail=Y&pshort=Y&pname=Y&pkeywords=Y&match=all&cid=0&q=210E0200&x=7&y=12

I did the lines different - I used the 5-way splitter from a 180B and ditched both the original 1600 brass ones. Shouldn't make any difference though. Its been 15 years or more since I messed with original calipers, but from memory the mounting pin for the caliper on the strut is "shouldered" and you just do the castle nut up till its tight and chuck the split pin in. The spring under the nut then applies the correct pressure to allow the caliper to slide. If everything looks to be hooked up OK, only other things I can think or are whether any of the brake lines are kinked (ie pinched so fluid is slow to return), a port on the master or one of the lines has some sort of blockage, one of the pistons in the master is a bit sticky (unlikely if its new), or the pistons in the calipers are sticking. Other than that, I'm running out of ideas. One more question - is it both front wheels or just one ?

I was just curious how the "plumbing" had been done - it would have originally had a single brake pipe from the master cylinder to a little brass 3-way splitter on the firewall (one to each front wheel, single line to the rear of the car). To use a dual circuit master would require completely re-doing a lot of the lines, was wondering if something was amiss there, whether the 5-way splitter / brake warning light switch had been used, etc. If its a new build, might be something as simple as wrong plumbing ? My understanding of the pressure release valve is that there are two types, one for disc and one for drum. Drum type holds more pressure and is what needs to be removed if you're doing a rear disc conversion, otherwise shouldn;t need to be touched. Is the pushrod from pedal to master correct length / correctly aligned ? I vaguely recall having to mess around with this when I fitted a 240K master to mine (replacing the single master).

JB1181 is a 180B master cylinder. Aussie delivered 1600's only had a single circuit, unboosted brake master cylinder. What other mods has he (or a previous owner) done to make the dual circuit master fit and function properly ? You shouldn't have needed to remove anything from the master cylinder, its designed for a front disc / rear drum setup in a 180B so should work fine as-is on the front disc / rear drum setup in a 1600, assuming all plumbing is correct (see first point above). Is the symptom that the front calipers are defintelyholding pressure, or that the front brakes drag / stay on ? Is the caliper free to pivot on its mounting ? Not binding / sticking at all ? Its designed to pivot on one mounting point and slide on the other, hence the ridiculous-looking "angled" brake pads.

Depends on what brakes you intend to run, master cylinder should match brakes. Go too big with the cylinder and you'll have a rock hard pedal with no "feel" (ie its either on or off). Too small and you'll have a soft pedal, good feel, but potentially run out of travel (ie pedal hits the floor).

Compressor, bracket and pulley for $400 - and you get a free L26 and auto trans thrown in ! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10221671729206758&set=pcb.2557367711206393&type=3&__tn__=HH-R&eid=ARD8G08vuyK89Vj3v4u3-lhGiibaS-lUTwrQL2s_zq7stX-U3AY64PHyeZaXJHSqwPsMMZ5BqCxqtAAh

My tip is to find a pulley that will work, then find a compressor that is readily available / reasonably priced, then make or get a bracket made to suit all those bits - its probably easier to get a modern compressor and fabricate a bracket than find an original bracket and then have to find a good condition compressor to match the factory bracket. The setup I did back in the 90's with an underdash unit + original pulley + homemade bracket + a custom hose or two + compressor and everything else from a VL commodore worked a treat and was pretty simple to install. Only downside was losing a bit of passenger knee-room

The last fairlady they had was "sold" at around $16K in 2 or 3 "no reserve, must sell" auctions, but popped up again for auction a few days later each time. This one has "small isolated rust spots" that appear to actually be huge rust patches in most panels. Plus a "gorgeous black interior" that seems to feature a badly hacked about dash held together with a chunk of vinyl stuck over the top and featuring non-original gauges and switches in a non-original or badly recovered dash panel. It also has the "big block" H20 2 litre engine (from a Nissan commercial vehicle or possibly even a forklift....) rather than the G15 1500 engine it should have. Although at least it has had the H20 tin rocker cover replaced with an original fairlady-specific alloy one to make it look "correct"

And then there's "Engine is in it, box should be too (As far as I know)".. Really ?? You;re trying to sell a complete wreck for $7800, how hard is it to stick your head under the car to see if it has a gearbox or not ??

Note the background in the two pics, in particular the fusebox on the wall. Bought by car yard to turn a profit, but they've realised its too much work (or they got it dirt cheap and are trying to profit by flipping it as-is). Same mob that have been trying to flog a dodgy looking Fairlady roadster over the last month or two. Nothing wrong with that I guess, although they are trying to sell it via a private ebay account rather than their business one, and are making out it was bought as a private project. Apologies if I sound like Gav on the tail of Edward Lee......

This one''s already "sold" twice in these "no reserve, must be sold" eBay auctions by this seller, at up to $16,000. Either something dodgy going on, or when the buyers arrive to pick it up something turns them off the car (perhaps the rust repairs in the pic of the interior of the boot are indicative of the state of the rest of the car ??) And while I''m having a whinge - B18 engine ?? JDM Bathurst Globes, wasn't aware Bathurst was in Japan ?? Contrasting original red interior - what happened to the rest of it, door trims etc - should match seats ?? And I'm done.......

For sale - one set of Hastings Chrome piston rings to suit .50mm oversize L28 pistons. Full specs - 86.50 bore, top ring 1.5mm, second ring 2mm, oil ring 4mm. Some L28 take a 2mm top ring.I believe (but could be wrong) that the 1.5mm rings suit flat top L28 pistons but don't take my word for it. Purchased via reseller last week from Precision International, their part number is RS1500020CR6H and retail is $112 plus postage (and they are now out of stock, seems like I got the last set). Sell for $90 including postage in Australia. Save me the hassle of returing them (and arguments over who ordered / supplied the wrong rings), get in quick before I change my mind and try to send them back !

They've always fetched decent money, although that's getting up there. Tempting to drag mine down out of the shed roof and cash in........

Public service announcement - if anyone ends up grabbing it and doesn't want / need the external cam oiling setup, I'd gladly take it off your hands as a "spottter fee" EDIT: I suck at linking, its $50 ,pickup from Melbourne, on the Nissan Datsun Classifieds Australia facebook group

Don't get me wrong, for the right price (and if I had room for it), I'd give it a crack. But then I like tinkering away in the shed for many years without seeing any real results......

"A lot of what you see is virtually superficial surface rust".............

It’s actually a good chance to be able to do a ‘track walk’ of an evening, without all the usual sightseers driving around aimlessly. so you can actually walk the racing line without worrying about being mowed down. I think you get a better feel for the whole circuit on foot. A group of us did it first event with an experienced racer pointing out lines, tips and tricks, etc. I found walking it a much better experience than just trundling around in a car at 60k’s

Not an L28, just a little L18. Old engine, pretty much worn out after 20 years (stock bottom end, unknown mild cam, minor head work and 38mm SU's) - 69hp at the rear wheels Same engine carefully rebuilt with 87mm flattops, bit more head work, 72 degree cam and 1 3/4" SU's - 102 hp at the wheels. No, its not the most powerful engine around, but the difference pre and post rebuild was considerable. I rebuilt it myself, total cost of all parts and machining was well under $2K for that extra 33hp. Would the next 33hp gain be just as cheap ? I doubt it....